AKA the Congressional District Tournament as Kansas had eight
Congressional Districts. Districts conducted elimination tournaments or selected
a representative.
1st District: Winchester 2nd District: Baldwin
3rd District: Buffalo 4th District: Emporia 5th
District: Clay Center 6th District: No Representative 7th
District: Reno County
8th District: Halstead & El Dorado. Normal College High School
of Emporia was the host team and was allowed to compete , but was barred from
winning any honors.

In 1912 a new tournament began that was sponsored by
the newly formed Kansas High School Athletic Association *. Eight teams
qualified either through an elimination district tournament or by appointment of
the district association. The 6th district did not send a team, so the 8th
district basketball hot bed was allowed two representatives. The Normal College
High School was the host for the tournament and was allowed to compete with the
understanding that they would be ineligible for any honors. 1

The first KSHSAA tournament was held March 8th
and 9th at the Kansas State Normal College gymnasium in Emporia. The gym was new
in 1910 and was similar to the Robinson Gym built by Kansas University. The
second floor housed a large gym floor for the exhibition of basketball. Above
that on the third floor was a running track that also served as a viewing area
when basketball games were being played. The fans would stand or lean against
the inside rail of the track and look down to the 2nd floor action or sit in the
500 seat capacity stands in the east end. 2

Reno County won the association cup and is recognized today as the
first official state basketball champion. 3
However, the Kansas University Open was still thought of as the Kansas State
champion in 1912. Tournament manager and Kansas Coach W.O. Hamilton declared
that the Lawrence tournament was "one of the most stupendous affairs ever
attempted in the basketball world." Fifteen boys teams played over two days
for the first place trophy. 4

Schools were charged a $2.00 entry fee
and admission money was collected to defray expenses for the visiting players.
Most were housed with local residents or fraternities. The recruiting aspect for
the fraternities helped the cooperation from the Greek houses. 5

The preliminary games were played on the
cross courts (50' x 45') in the same manner as the 1911 tourney. The finals were
played on the big court with a 70' x 45' dimension. 6

Lawrence accepted all comers for this
tourney, but some teams ended up being horribly overmatched in the tournament
draw. Bonner Springs was buried 94-6 by Lawrence. The Lawrence team's domination
of the center jump practically eliminated any possessions for the Bonner Springs
five and they were unable to record even one field goal. 7

On March 16, 1912 the Baldwin boys under the coaching of Naismith
HOF Emil Liston defeated the champs of the KSHSAA tournament in the Kansas
University Finals. Ed Kinzer, Clair Kerns, Elbert Wright, Ray Trotter, John
Dean, Alfred Runyon, William Hobbs and Avery Kitterman composed the roster for
the Baldwin team. 8

* The Association was
formed in the fall of 1910. 9 Conversations
among educators and superintendents in these formative years centered on the
problems of the high school athletic teams. The first high school football teams
in Kansas often supplemented the roster with town boys (graduates or boys not
enrolled in high school). This practice was openly agreed to by the competing
parties. Bill Hargiss , an early football coaching pioneer, played on a high
school team that had very few students enrolled for studies on the roster. 10

Superintendent A.I. Decker of
Humboldt reported in a conference at Emporia in April, 1910 that in his county
the use of non-student rosters became so bad that few high school students were
participating in sports. The schools in his county formed a county association
to make sure only students enrolled in the high schools and making passing
grades would be allowed on high school rosters. He reported to the Emporia
group, "Some teacher of the school must be in charge of the team in
contests and in practice. We must eliminate commercialism, not give rewards. The
athletics of Kansas schools should be ... in control of the school men of the
state. Only in this way can athletics be purified." 11

A small voluntary group of 50
schools was formed in the fall of 1910 with the hope to consolidate the ideas of
Decker and others into a statewide organization. The Athletic Association grew
rapidly to as many as 500 members by the early 1920's. 12

The KU Invitational
remained the prestige event in 1913. The fledgling association conducted their
district qualification tournament the weekend before the KU event. There was no
way to conduct their State tournament in direct competition with the Lawrence
gathering, so it was held after that event on March 21st and 22nd. 1

Hamilton of
Kansas gleefully announced that the Kansas University event was the
"biggest of its kind ever held in the world."
Thirty-two teams competing for the title over two days required two games to be
played simultaneously in the early rounds. As in the past, these games
were played in less than normal regulation time. 2

One of the new schools that
swelled the KU brackets came all the way from Osborne county. The Downs high
school boys left early Wednesday morning by train to arrive by late afternoon
Thursday in Lawrence. They stopped along the way to allow other teams on board
like the raucous Cawker City team that started their cheers early on in the
train ride. They stopped in Manhattan for a tour and marveled at the Kansas
State Agricultural College. School reporter and varsity member Donald Davis
reported, "The people of Kansas (may) not realize what a splendid school
they have here." His description of the trip showed the enthusiasm of boys
on their first trip out of their area of the state. This was part of the allure
of the Lawrence tournament in that any school could compete if they could find a
way to Robinson Gym. 3

As for playing in the
tournament, Davis explained that the team without a coach was happy to win one
game and lose honorably to Baldwin. "Aside from seeing two of the best
colleges in the world, (we) won a game and gained a lot of practical knowledge.
The summary of the whole thing seems to be WE DIDN'T WIN, BUT WE LEARNED A
LOT." 4

Officials for the games were
Hoover of Baker University, Ed Van der Vries of Sedan and former KU player Phog
Allen. The Kansas tournament's roster of players and officials often contained
future Hall of Famers. No more famous name in all of basketball was an
interested spectator for the finals between Reno County and Halstead. Reporters
spoke to Dr. James Naismith
at the gym about how the game of basketball began. 5

He told them about the winter of
1891 at Springfield Training School in Massachusetts. The footballers were not
taking any interest in the gym work. The routine work with dumb-bells and Indian
Clubs was "exceedingly irksome to them", he explained. He went
about devising something that would challenge the wits of the football players
and still provide physical conditioning in the winter months.

That December they tried a
"de-horned version" of football, but it was still too rough. Soccer
and lacrosse games were attempted, but the gym they used was too small for
indoor versions of those sports. He then returned to the football game and noted
that tackling was the roughest part of the game. He prohibited tackling by
prohibiting the man with possession of the ball from running with the ball. He
was only allowed to pass the ball or attempt a shot at the goal. Everyone else
playing in the game was not restricted in movement.

He then needed to devise a goal
different from the football goal line. He came upon the idea of making a
horizontal goal. He said, "The ball instead of being thrown forcibly would
have to describe an arc before it entered the goal." After some
experimentation, it became obvious that the goal had to be elevated above the
player's head, since otherwise defenders would simply camp around the more
conventional goals.

Naismith then described the first goal used
for the new game. " I went to the janitor and asked for some sort of a box.
It just happened that he procured a couple of baskets ( such as peaches are
shipped in) about eighteen inches across at the top. We nailed these up on the
gallery which happened to be just ten foot high." He explained that the
name "basket-ball" stuck to the game ever since and the official
height of the goal remained ten feet. The early players of the game at
Springfield carried the game with them on summer vacation to their homes all
aound the country. 6

* Except a few scores in the book were in error or
failed to note OT periods. For example, the quarter-final Lawrence-Hill City was
reported at 51-32 in the Newton newspaper and KSHSAA source for this game was
determined to be in error. Future corrections will be sourced in the manner
shown above. KSHSAA is the default source for the scores for all KSHSAA
sponsored tournaments.

KU
Invitational manager Coach Hamilton welcomed twenty-nine teams to the 1914
tourney at Robinson Gym. He told the University Daily Kansan, "It is a big
job, taking care of that many boys, but it is worth it. Eight members of the
Freshman basketball squad this year were in the high school meet and many others
probably were attracted to the University by their visit here." He went on
to urge students to help entertain the visiting athletes. 1 The recruiting
aspect of this event was beginning to annoy the other college institutions
around the state. This would lead high schools, many with administrations
staffed with graduates of colleges other than Kansas University, to push
for consolidation of the tournaments with the KSHSAA in charge.

Lawrence was the favorite for the
championship of the Kansas University tourney. They had traveled to Newton and
won the association's state tourney over Ark Valley powers Reno County and
Wichita. Art Lawrence and George Woodward were the stars of this version of the
"Black & Red". Reno County played the Lawrence five to a
standstill before Gibson of Lawrence finally broke a tie with less than a minute
left in the game. 2

The small field of eight teams for the Newton
tournament did not leave much profit for tournament organizers. They were very
pleased that after all expenses, including travel for the participants, the net
profit was $19.05. 3

Only one team was able to defeat Lawrence in
the regular season. Fort Scott was unable to raise the money needed to send
their team to Lawrence. The Lawrence squad did benefit from a forfeit and
several inexperienced opponents before bouncing Reno County once again in the
final. 4

RULE CHANGE: When a
player knocked a ball out of bounds, or touched it last, a member of the
opposing team would be allowed to in-bound the ball. Previously, the first
person to touch the ball out of bounds would be allowed to throw the ball back
in play without interference. 5 This caused desperate dives for the ball and
general rough play. A ball that landed in the balcony could set off a mad
scramble up the stairs to obtain the ball. 6

Most followers of the
high school game conceded that Iola had the best team in the state during the
1914-15 basketball season. 1 They were undefeated and had a young player.
Forrest
"Red" DeBernardi who would develop into one of the most
celebrated AAU players of all time. He was a college All-American at Westminster
(MO) and a five time AAU All-American. He was an early inductee to the Naismith
Hall of Fame. 2

He could play all
positions on the floor even as a high school player. "Red" played mainly the
forward position during this season and supported many of the upper classmen
with assists for easy goals as he always drew an opponent's best defender. The
veteran members of the team were Orin and Russell Brown, Howard Ritchey and
Captain Harry Sheue. 3

Despite playing the
heavy favorite role at the KSHSAA tournament at Emporia, Iola lost the final
game to Wichita of the Ark Valley League. The Iolans had a more difficult time
with the Norton five led by Roy Wynne than they had anticipated. Russell Brown
missed most of the final game with Wichita. 4

The participating
schools praised Bill Hargiss of the Emporia Normal College (Emporia State) for
his management of the tournament. But, the financial reward for the association
was a disappointment. 5

Iola re-grouped to win the
big tourney the following week at Lawrence. Another Ark Valley team, Newton, was
not able to recover from a tougher schedule of games and Iola was determined to
prove they were the best in Kansas. 6

The faults of both
tournaments began a discussion that would lead to consolidation in 1916. Newton
was the champion of the Ark Valley and had defeated Wichita twice but was not
allowed to compete in Emporia because Wichita defeated them in the district
qualifier. 7 Then Wichita stayed away from the Kansas University tourney as they
most probably felt they did not need to prove themselves once again after defeating
both Newton and Iola. The size of the Lawrence tourney began to be questioned by
some. First and second round games were being played in two ten minute
halves without a half-time break. 8 These games did not go off without
some confusion. Garden City and Peru played an entire half before they found out
they were playing the wrong opponents. Garden City took the floor without rest
from the Peru scrimmage and lost to Pleasanton. Peru followed with a loss to
correct opponent Onaga. 9